The local media recently reported on a controversy at Purdue, where a professor had posted anti-gay opinions on his private website. Not long afterward, I had a call from a student who was curious about my opinion of the situation. She knew me as a strong proponent of equal rights, so she wanted to know [...]

I hate to beat up on the United Nations. I’m one of those “can’t we all get along” people who would just like to hold hands (metaphorically speaking) with people everywhere while singing kumbaya.  Plus, our increasingly interrelated world desperately needs an effective international body. The problem is, the U.N. keeps demonstrating that it isn’t [...]

                                 
Ever wonder why freedom of the press was singled out for specific protection in the First Amendment? After all, the Free Speech clause obviously protected the press as well as other citizens. Why include a specific provision about freedom of the press?

The answer is that the architects of our constitution believed that self-government requires the [...]

< P > I n 1 9 9 3 , N a t H e n t o f f w r o t e a b o o k t i t l e d “ F r e e S p e e c h f o r M e b u t [...]

In 1993, Nat Hentoff wrote a book titled “Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee: How the American Right and Left Relentlessly Censor Each Other.” After amply documenting this thesis, Hentoff concluded that the human animal’s urge to censor was at least as strong, and perhaps stronger, than its sex drive.

Whatever the comparative strengths [...]